Homemade foods
There is no doubt that homemade foods have lots of benefits as they can be:
- Fresh, nutritious and tasty
- Great for getting your baby used to all the family food flavours they will be eating in the coming years
There are a few things to think about when preparing food for your baby. Have a look at the helpful hints below:
- Choose the very freshest food that you can. Check "use by " dates carefully on all foods that you buy for your baby
- Choose tender cuts of meat and cut away the excess fat before cooking them
- Make sure that all the skin, scales and bones have been removed from fish that you give to your baby
- Nutrients such as vitamins can be leached out into cooking water when vegetables are boiled so steaming is a great option for preparing foods for babies
- If you do boil vegetables, try to reuse the cooking water when pureeing or making stock to retain some of the vitamins, or even offer it cooled as a drink for your baby...carrot water often goes down well!
- Try not to over-cook vegetables as more nutrients will be lost; don’t worry too much in the first few weeks though, when you are making smooth purees
- Meat and fish can be steamed, grilled or microwaved. They can also be fried or oven roasted but if you do use these methods of cooking, use as little additional fat as possible
- Always make sure that foods are cooked until they are piping hot all the way through. Check by sticking a knife into the middle of the dish
- After it has been cooked until piping hot, make sure the food that you serve your baby has cooled down to a warm temperature. Try and do this as quickly as you can, as leaving food around at room temperature encourages bacteria to breed. Spreading the food around on a large dinner plate works well
- Don’t prepare too much of one batch, your baby will be moving on in texture and tastes quickly
